Blue: Moment Magazine-Karma Foundation Short Fiction.
Moment › Vol. 36 Nbr. 6, November 2011
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Blue: Moment Magazine-Karma Foundation Short Fiction.
The adults had been there for hours--the ones from out of town for days--and they all seemed happy, huddled in little groups that opened up whenever I passed to let me in. They were offering me a space to receive their congratulations and slurred life advice. I smiled gamely and kept walking through my grandparents' house--through the sunroom, past the living room picture window, past the silver platters of food, the crystal decanters with little nametags chained around their necks. I had nowhere to go. I had changed out of my bar mitzvah suit into an aqua leisure suit with a polyester shirt depicting a crowded seafloor scene. I had blow-dried and sprayed my hair into a kind of helmet. I was ready for someone my age to show up. I was ready for a miracle to take place and a cool bar mitzvah party to assemble on the screened back porch. A bar mitzvah was, after all, a religious celebration, and in those days it was religion alone that lifted me out of despair, inspiring in me the fervid hope that everything would be all right.
I happened to be in the front hall to witness the spectacle of Aaron Elkins making his entrance. It was July, it was Savannah, my grandparents' air conditioner had broken, and so the attic fan was on. I stood in the insuck of hot air through the open front door and watched Aaron navigate his way up ...See the full content of this document
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